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Hollywood Interrupted
by Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner
A lowdown dirty book.
According to journalists Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner, “Hollywood has been a morass of drugs, alcohol, petty crimes, and mental illness since its inception.”
But in its golden age the studios worked hard to keep the indiscretions of their stars under wraps. Now since that is no longer the case, celebrities' insecurities and issues increasingly come to light and Breitbart and Ebner have been taking notes.
There is only one word for their profile of Hollywood and its dysfunctional inhabitants – sordid – and there are no celebrities that emerge from the book's pages unscathed.
Vanity, for one thing, apparently knows no bounds in Hollywood. The authors examine a recent trend of pregnant celebrities, including Liz Hurley, Victoria ‘Posh Spice' Beckham and Catherine Zeta-Jones, arranging Cesarean deliveries as much as two weeks prior to their due date, allegedly “to avoid stretch marks and other post-natal aesthetic inconveniences.”
Throughout the book, the authors pull no punches, at one point flatly stating, “Celebrities should not be allowed to have children. Period.” As evidence, they list a number of celebrities – including Paul Newman, Mary Tyler Moore, Caroll O'Connor and Barbara Eden – whose children died from alcohol or drug overdoses or committed suicide. And in a chapter titled “In Loco Parentis: Hollywood Nannies,” the authors chronicle the struggles of those hired by celebrities, to care for their children while they are off pursuing fame and fortune.
Celebrity nannies are legion – Demi Moore and Bruce Willis once employed four nannies for their three children – and most are required to sign nondisclosure agreements, “threatening huge lawsuits should the nannies reveal even the brand of baby lotion used in their employers' household.” Nevertheless, one such nanny spoke with the authors on the condition of anonymity, citing behavioral problems rampant among celebrity children and the absenteeism and indulgences of their parents. Apparently one celebrity mother paid “$600 an hour for a ‘psychic massage' where someone would stand over her and not even put their hands on her.”
Also examined is expensive prep schools infested with drugs, and celebrity criminals, including the now infamous Winona Ryder, who in addition to shoplifting, was addicted to prescription painkillers and received “37 different prescriptions from 20 different doctors between 1996 and 1998.”
A brief chapter dubbed “From Rehab to Retox” touches on a popular rehab for celebrities with alcohol, drug and gambling addictions – what their publicists like to classify as “cumulative lifestyle,” “exhaustion,” or “dehydration” – which boasts Matthew Perry, Ben Affleck and Robert Downey, Jr. among its alumni.
More than anything, the book portrays the weirdness extent in Hollywood. Just one of many examples given is actor Dyan Cannon, whose “flirtations with faith have included dalliances with nearly every self-help fad to trundle through Hollywood, including watermelon diets, hypnosis, LSD, and climbing inside an Avis van and pounding its walls.”
The authors also lampoon Hugh Hefner – whom they describe as “A fossilized relic embalmed in nostalgia and Viagra, corseted and cuddled by seven interchangeable, indistinguishable blondes” – and detail some of the seedier happenings at his Playboy Mansion.
Also interesting is the damage control employed by Eddie Murphy's handlers to make his alleged involvement with a transsexual prostitute go away, and Prince's backstage requirement that “all items in dressing room must be covered by clear plastic wrap until uncovered by main artist.”
To the authors, nothing in Hollywood is sacred; they even criticize the stars for being too politically correct and for taking on various charitable causes.
The authors' flippant and irreverent approach to all things Hollywood grows tired by the book's last few pages, but one would be hard-pressed to find a more scathing treatment of celebrity in one source.
Title: Hollywood Interrupted
Author: Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN: 0471450510
Review written by: Marc Duane Anderson
Reviewer's Rating:8
Reader's Rating: 9.50
Reader's Votes: 2
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